I’m trying to avoid doing other things, so here’s a list of French Silk Pies I want to try. I’m still editing this list but had to stop and go pick Fuzz up from school.
Pie photo to come. For now, here’s a cute corgi pup.
Pillsbury’s Bake-Off French Silk Pie
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 8 oz butter
This is probably the one I should have made first. The recipe says you can use egg substitute OR 4 pasteurized eggs. I would go with the 4 pasteurized eggs.
Cooks’ Country
CC article says that the original (PBO) calls for egg substitute and that they didn’t want to use that. I don’t blame them! However, I didn’t see any mention in the CC article of pasteurized eggs. It would be really nice to avoid the step of heating the eggs to 160 by beating them over simmering water. I wonder if you used pasteurized egg if you could skip the hot water/candy thermometer bit.
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, 3 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 4 oz butter, 8 oz cream in batter
1 oz semi-sweet chocolate, 2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 4 oz butter, no cream in batter
Probably excellent, but only 1 oz of chocolate. Curious.
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate, 2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 4 oz butter, no cream in batter
Similar to Baking Bites version but with slightly more chocolate
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, 3 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 6 oz butter, no cream in batter
Proportions similar to Baking Bites version but with unsweetened chocolate and more of it. This one’s probably excellent.
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate, 2 egg YOLKS only, 1/3 cup sugar, 2.7 oz butter, 9.5 oz heavy cream
More chocolate, less egg, less sugar, less butter, tons of cream. This one sounds awesome but the directions give me a headache.
Allrecipes version with cocoa powder
Very different than all above because it calls for cocoa powder. It has the equivalent of about 1 1/3 oz unsweetened chocolate, but lots more egg and sugar.
This recipe was in a late 70’s early 80’s Pillsbury Bake off cookbook. A little goes a long, long way so you can serve up to 16 people because it is so rich. I usually double the recipe for one pie though.
It was a chocolate pie — very dense and fudgy.
Pasteurized shell eggs, like Davidson’s, are really good this recipe where the eggs do not get heated to a point that makes them safe. This is especially important if you’re serving children, elderly, pregnant women or anyone who has an illness or condition that weakens their immune system.
My friend once made a fantastic pie that was tofu based. It had blackberry jelly in it. It has been 15 years but I still drool at the thought of it. Does anyone have that recipe?
I have a recipe in a 30-year-old chocolate booklet that I think you should include in your “silk” trials. It’s Triple-Chocolate Silk and is three layers of Bavarian cream — white, milk, and semisweet, done in a 6-cup souffle dish. A slice is then served in a small pool of bittersweet chocolate sauce. I’ll have to scan the recipe in and send it to you. 🙂 I made it years ago. I have another one that I’m looking for too.
Karen, thanks!
My computer has a hard time handling that site because of all the pictures, so I will have to re-type the recipe at some point. I printed it out.
8 oz butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 4 eggs. Sounds great!
Pioneer Woman has a version with 4 eggs, 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, 8 oz butter, 1.5 cups sugar, no cream in filling. Just another version for comparision. I’ve been curious to try this pie someday, I have never had one and I am actually not really freaked-out by salmonella.
French silk is my favorite Dreyer’s flavor, too!
Hi Elisa,
I love that type of pie! No one ever guesses there’s tofu. I made a non-vegan butterfinger pie and used the tofu recipe as the base.
http://www.cookiemadness.net/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=236
For a nontraditional super healthy and absolutely awesome ‘silk’ pie…(and its vegan too! not that that matters to you (or me haha) ) just throw a a package of silken tofu into a food processor with 2 cups of melted semisweet chips and pour into a crust! It’s amazing.
i vote for the martha recipe… sounds like good proportions 🙂
Thanks for checking that, Nicole. Pillsbury does update recipes, so I was wondering if that was the case.
The one I tried (on Baking Bites) was from a 1951 Pillsbury Bake Off recipe booklet. Comparing the recipes, it looks like Pillsbury changed the ingredients of the french silk pie on their website to make it more chocolaty, since it still has a note that it was a winning recipe in 1951 on that webpage. I never would have noticed that! The original definitely isn’t super chocolaty, but it does have an amazing texture. I liked it this way, actually, since I’ve tried some French Silk pies that were far more chocolate than silk.
Great list of recipes for this type of pie! I can’t wait to see how they all compare if and when you get around to testing them out.
These all look like great options for experimentation. I haven’t had French Silk Pie in about 20 years – odd, considering it used to be my favorite. I would always order it when we went to the K&W cafeteria with my grandfather. This definitely brings back memories.
Haha, procrastination at its finest 🙂